March 23, 2018
Dear editor;
I was appalled, shocked, and angered by the March 1 article in The Voice by Mr. John W. Whitehead, a regular columnist “U.S. gun violence spawned by military culture, warfare.” His article was an affront to everyone who ever served in our military, including me.
I served for 25 years, active and reserves, including special operations during the Vietnam war in submarines. Many of my close friends and Naval Academy classmates were killed, wounded, tortured, and deformed in combat, including five who spent many years in the hell-hole called the Hanoi Hilton.
Mr. Whitehead had the audacity to center the root cause of gun violence in America on military culture and warfare. He should be ashamed of himself, but I’ve come to learn that individuals like him pontificate without knowing what they are talking about, love to lecture the rest of us in how to lead our lives, and have no shame. I’ve looked up Mr. Whitehead’s background on the internet and couldn’t find a shred of evidence that he ever served our country, in any way.
Some of his outrageous claims at our “military culture engaged in continuous warfare” include: Using Hollywood as our propaganda machine; sustaining the Nation’s appetite for war; being groomed from a very young age to enlist as foot soldiers; and, turning the American homeland into a quasi-battlefield with military gear, weapons, and tactics. There were many more condescending and incendiary remarks about our military culture, which obviously is an attack on military veterans who have proudly carried that culture forward in our great Republic.
Just who does this man think he is? In my judgment he is an ill-informed, ill-educated, emotionally-driven, progressive liberal who knows absolutely nothing about which he preaches. Furthermore, many, if not most of us military veterans, are sick and tired of stupid individuals just like him attacking the very individuals who fought, sacrificed, and died to give him the ability to speak freely, albeit stupidly.
If you think analytically about what he said, and how he writes it, it is he and others of his ilk have been at the root cause of gun violence in America. Our Nation’s culture has been on a slippery slope downward for many years. It is the progressive liberal political correctness agenda that has caused our Nation, and much of its youth, to have little respect for faith, family, life, morality, and sound principles for living. We had guns when I was a youth, but we didn’t shoot one another. What changed? The philosophy of individuals like Mr. Whitehead is what changed.
What America desperately needs is a revolution against the uninformed, emotional liberals like Mr. Whitehead. I strongly urge The Voice to play a role in this revolution by cancelling Mr. Whitehead as its weekly guest columnist and substituting someone with the traditional values, mores, and principles that could return America to a time when we didn’t shoot one another and think nothing of it.
Leonard R. Wass
Oswego
